Department of Materials Science and Engineering, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan 70101, Taiwan.
Nanoscale. 2017 Sep 28;9(37):14039-14046. doi: 10.1039/c7nr04689h.
Piezoelectric nanogenerators have been investigated to generate electricity from environmental vibrations due to their energy conversion capabilities. In this study, we demonstrate an optimal geometrical design of inertial vibration direct-current piezoelectric nanogenerators based on obliquely aligned InN nanowire (NW) arrays with an optimized oblique angle of ∼58°, and driven by the inertial force of their own weight, using a mechanical shaker without any AC/DC converters. The nanogenerator device manifests potential applications not only as a unique energy harvesting device capable of scavenging energy from weak mechanical vibrations, but also as a sensitive strain sensor. The maximum output power density of the nanogenerator is estimated to be 2.9 nW cm, leading to an improvement of about 3-12 times that of vertically aligned ZnO NW DC nanogenerators. Integration of two nanogenerators also exhibits a linear increase in the output power, offering an enormous potential for the creation of self-powered sustainable nanosystems utilizing incessantly natural ambient energy sources.
压电纳米发电机因其能量转换能力而被研究用于从环境振动中发电。在这项研究中，我们展示了一种基于倾斜排列的 InN 纳米线（NW）阵列的惯性直流压电纳米发电机的最佳几何设计，其优化的倾斜角约为 58°，并通过自身重量的惯性力驱动，使用机械振动器而无需任何 AC/DC 转换器。该纳米发电机设备不仅表现出作为一种独特的能量收集装置的潜在应用，能够从微弱的机械振动中收集能量，而且还表现出作为一种敏感的应变传感器的应用。该纳米发电机的最大输出功率密度估计为 2.9 nW cm，与垂直排列的 ZnO NW DC 纳米发电机相比提高了约 3-12 倍。两个纳米发电机的集成也表现出输出功率的线性增加，为利用不断的自然环境能源创建自供电可持续纳米系统提供了巨大的潜力。
